The 2011 season will shortly be upon us, and I am going to stick my neck out and make my predictions. First, the tyre issue will prove critical. The FIA, or someone, wants more pit stops, so Pirelli has apparently been told to make sure that the tyres wear out faster, forcing drivers to change more often. I believe this will lead to a serious safety issue, with failures at high speeds and the very clear risk of pitlane collisions with many cars coming in to change tires at the same time. The end result will be a classic agonizing reappraisal at midseason, and the summer "break" will be spent testing new tyre compounds that will wind up giving us a competitive situation similar to last year, when the soft tyres could be changed within the first 10 laps of the race, and the harder tyre would perform acceptably, and endure for the rest of the event.

As to the cars and teams, Red Bull is my shocking pick to continue as constructors' champion, and Sebastian Vettel to continue as driver's champion. No one understands the rules and the aerodynamics of the current F1 car like Adrian Newey, and as long as he is designing for Red Bull they will have an advantage. For much of last year I questioned whether Sebastian Vettel had the maturity, judgment, and controlled fire to be champion. But his brilliant drives in the last two races, with the pressure squarely on his shoulders, proved that he is a worthy champion, and I think the mistakes of last year will be almost completely behind him.

Mark Webber's chance to be champion seems to have passed, and the question is will he be content to be Vettel's wingman or will he fight him for every inch of the road as happened last year all too often. Now that team orders are ok I expect the teams will base their orders on qualifying positions which will add to Saturday's excitement for sure.

Chasing Red Bull, futilely I feel, will be Ferrari and McLaren, with Maranello and Woking winning the few races that get away from Red Bull, and taking the third spot on the podium most of the time. For no particular reason, I believe McLaren will wind up second in the Constructors' Championship, with Ferrari third. As to the drivers, Webber will be second to Vettel, with Hamilton third, Alonso fourth, Button fifth, and Massa sixth.

Picking up the remaining points, in this order, will be Mercedes, Renault, Sauber, Williams, and Force India. Mercedes will continue to struggle, and the flukiness of Brawn's 2009 championship will be reinforced. Renault may be better than Mercedes, but with Kubica's participation very much in doubt it is unlikely that Heidfeld or Petrov will be able to get enough out of the car to bring them into the top five at any race, barring Bernie's sprinkler systems coming into effect.

At Sauber, Kobayashi remains the most exciting driver in F1 is back, and I very much look forward to his storming drives from what will most likely be mid-pack starting positions. It is unlikely even he will be able to drag that car on to a podium but it certainly won't be for lack of effort. Rubens Barrichello's class, maturity and professionalism should put Williams in the points consistently, but again seldom, if ever, in the top five. Toro Rosso will fill that considerable gap between the good teams and the pretenders, so I expect Buemi and Alguersuari to have the loneliest races, cruising around in the teens, position-wise. Now to the bottom-feeders; Team Lotus will probably be a bit better than Virgin, with HRT barely getting onto the grid, at least for the first part of the season. Indeed, considering their financial difficulties, I expect HRT to call it a day and disappear by mid-season.

A week from now we'll start to get some answers, and in the meanwhile, I'm heading to Sebring this weekend for America's greatest sports car race, with an entry list of nearly 60 cars, and perfect weather predicted, it looks like it should be an epic race.

Jim Casey
jim.casey@pitpass.com